Sorrows & Thanksgivings

It's been a hard month for us. My grandfather (my mom's father) passed away in early November, a few days after having a major stroke. A few weeks previously almost the whole extended family gathered for a joyous celebration of his 90th birthday, and it was a blessing that he died peacefully after a long and full life, but I miss him very, very much.

Here's a video of him singing "Aba Daba Honeymoon" to the girls last year.

 

It has been special having family close by in all this. My mom extended her stay by a month, and so was able to join us for Thanksgiving.

The table setting.

Mr. Turkey, which the girls and I made.

Clara snapped green beans for our feast.

And Lucy helped to fill the orange cups with mashed sweet potatos (and later she topped them with mini marshmellows).

I am so glad we live close to my Grandma, and can be with her through this hard time.

Grandma made the pies for dinner- apple and pumpkin- so delicious!

We made a Thanksgiving tree out of branches, and Lucy and Clara helped to trace and cut out leaves for everyone to write their thanksgivings on.

A picture of some stuffed folks, after Clara had gone to bed.

And now onto Advent and Christmas preparations.

Lucy decorating the tree- she was a big help.

She even hung the angel on top!

Clara had fun decorating too, and has been doing really well at keeping the ornaments on the tree.

Our beautiful tree and ornaments, with the playmobil nativity set in the back left. Lucy has been playing a lot with it, acting out the story of Jesus, as well as her own stories.

We transformed the Thanksgiving tree into a Christmas tree- Lucy had the idea of hanging the PEACE letters on it.

The girls have new stockings, thanks to Grandma Judy! I used fabric paint to write their names, and to draw the snowflakes on Clara's.

Glowing lights inside.

And on our front porch- they are so cheery.

Happy Halloween Candy

So we fell off the blogging bandwagon, but here we are. Who knows, maybe I'll catch up on the last few months at some point. In brief, we had fabulous visits with Grandma Judy and then Mimi and Papa Jack, I was sick for a few weeks, and we have a new niece/cousin, Nora Ann Rejoice!! She is beautiful and a darling and we are so in love with her.

Lucy dictated the picture captions to me (and chose the post title). Enjoy!

This is Clara wrapped up in my favorite blankey.

This is me putting Papa Jack's hat on Clara, wrapped up in my blankey again.

This is me and Clara. I am tracing the yarn from the sky to the balls down low on the ground, and Clara is just drawing with a pen.

This is me and the rainbow dinner. The little red things are strawberries. The orange were carrots. And the two yellow ones were deviled eggs and corn. The green things were broccoli. And then the blue things are blueberries. And the purple things are grapes. I thought it was very nice and it was a rainbow dinner.

This is me and Clara sitting on Mama's lap at lunchtime.

Mama is a rock star. I am Minnie Mouse and Clara is a bunny. That is us on Halloween night. We had very fun and we went out with our friend Afra and she's my very good friend. We went to neighbor's house and we said "trick-or-treat" and one friend gave us apricots. These people are our neighbors that we're talking about. Clara liked the things too. And one of our neighbors was dressed up as a parrot.

This is me and Clara standing on Halloween night too. Do you see the little bitty heart on the door? I colored it. It's taped on. It was hard to get Clara's costume on. That is my trick-or-treating bag. I colored a rainbow on it and I drew a big pumpkin on the other side of my bag that you can't see right now.

This is Clara smiling, playing with the dollhouse and that is our back porch. And she is smiling in her ballet dress. But she does not do ballet yet. It just has pink hearts and pink ballet slippers with ties on them.

This is me riding my bike with no training wheels at the park in my rainbow coat. It has regular rainbows and star rainbows and heart rainbows that are very pretty on my coat and it is purple on the outside. There is a little bit of yellow a little bit of red and a little bit of green on the rainbows. On the seat is stars.

Country fair and new favorite hike

Here are a few highlights from the last month!

Aplayhouse we made from a huge box.

Complete with a window and doors!

Butterfly face painting from the country fair.

We also had fun eating cotten candy, riding on the fire truck, and listening to bluegrass music.

Lucy & Matt at the top of our new favorite hike. It's only about 1 1/2 hours round trip, and at the top there is a gorgeous view of forest and hills.



Matt and the girls enjoying the view.




Snack time with my Clare-bear.



Clara the toddler

Clara seems to have officially graduated from baby to toddler these past few months. She's getting taller, can run pretty fast, and had an explosion of words over the summer.

Here's the list of new words I gathered, starting in mid to late July: book, "sigh"- outside, boots, swimsuit, potty, flush, "ee-see"- Lucy, beach, bye, hi, two, happy, bubbles, hot, up, "pop"- popcorn, "bee-bee"- blankey, truck, light, bath, blueberries, "yah-yoh"- yogurt, "nola"- granola, "pah"- pretzels, blue, blow, feet, toes, "peeze"- please, "tah-too"- thank you, bless you, get you, coffee, soda, treat, cake, shut, loud, tea, bone, salt, out, yellow, peach, "tout"- time out, cup, spoon, in, cat, towel, sad.

A few of the words deserve a bit of explanation. Clara has learned "two", because when we go to my grandparents, she always gets two pretzels. So now if I give her just one of something, she says "two". And just the other day, I gave her two pretzels and she said, "tee" for three. :)

Also this summer, Clara started saying "happy". It took me awhile to realize what she meant, and that she seems to be describing how she feels. Some nights when I'm holding her before putting her down in her crib, she says "happy". And she says it other times during the day too. I'll ask if she's feeling happy and she nods. Then she says, "ee-see" and "Mama", asking if we're happy too. Clara has also learned "sad", and when she hears a baby cry, she makes a point of coming over to me and telling me "sad". Also, whenever Lucy is upset, Clara goes over to her and pats her.

I love seeing her personality develop and come out. On the whole she's a sunshiney girl, easygoing but mischevious, and with a mind of her own. She loves to do anything Lucy is doing, and makes herself quite at home with big kids.

One of my fave pictures of Clara from the summer.

Being silly with a hat over her head.

Clara's eyes are still bright blue!

Putting little people on her fingers; Lucy used to do this all the time too.

In true little sister form, Clara likes to do everything Lucy is doing, including playing piano.

She's so ready to be a big girl, even helping carry the sand toys to the car.

Lucy's new skills!

This has been quite a month for Lucy in the skills department! After a month of swim lessons, a few weeks ago she finally got the hang of swimming underwater, and now I can hardly get her out of the lake. Here's a video of her swimming.

Sometime in July, Lucy asked if I would start teaching her piano. We ordered some beginner piano books, and she's been learning notes, rhythm, etc. We visited my grandparents almost every day during swim lessons, so she had lots of opportunities to practice on their piano. Here she is playing a song!

And most recently (today!), Lucy learned to ride her bike without training wheels!! A week ago we moved the training wheels up a setting, so she had to balance more on her own. Today was only the second time she had tried biking without the training wheels, and after a few tries with Matt and I helping, she had it! I am so proud of her, and got all teary watching her bike down the driveway. It feels like a significant rite of passage, somehow.

Next post, I promise to give an update on precious Clara!

Blueberry picking

Ahh, blueberries warmed by the sun, fresh off the bush. We had our summer blueberry picking adventure a few weeks ago with my grandma and cousin (a tradition now- see our 2010 and 2009 expeditions; we went in 2011 too, but I don't seem to have posted about it).

Blueberries this way!

Lucy, Alma and Grandma

Lucy did a great job picking, and exerted impressive self-control at not eating them all.

Grandma enjoying the sun and the berries.

Clara is definitely at the "eat, eat, eat" stage of blueberry picking.

Lucy nibbled a few too (as did I- so good!).



Lucy showing her harvest. 



And the whole gang!

At the beach

Ah, the glorious days of summer. Lucy has swim lessons for 2, 2-week sessions this summer at a nearby lake. It's been great to have a regular schedule (the lessons are every morning), and to get out to the beach so much. Thankfully the weather has been beautiful on the whole. We get to stop by and say hi to my grandparents on the way there and back, and the girls love playing with them. Lucy's been getting more comfortable with putting her head under water, and today she even practiced swimming on her own for a few seconds at a time.

Clara and I have fun playing during Lucy's swim lesson. She's gotten a lot more comfortable in the water and with sand, and will happily sit down and scoop up sand and water with her bucket and shovel. Periodically she says, "ee-see?", asking where Lucy is. It's so cute how she keeps tabs on Lucy.

Our beautiful lake.

Snack time.

I love her little feet!

Lucy practicing a back float.

And here she's swimming with the barbell float.